Detailed Information on Publication Record

The book is a collection of studies and contributions divided into two parts. The first one begins with a synthetic presentation of the artistic patronage in late medieval Silesia. Around 1500 its work became the foundation of the cultural identity of the region, the Bohemian Crown state which in the 15th century was able to compete with the Kingdom of Bohemia and promote its own vision of the Bohemian state’s future. The next chapter is an attempt at the new interpretation of the statue on the facade of Wrocław Cathedral. It is a crypto-portrait of Emperor Charles IV who is identified here with St. Wenceslas. This is justified by the fact that the Emperor himself wrote about the double face of a ruler, the spiritual and the physical. The third chapter explains the Wrocław popularity of the representation of St. Hieronymus’ ideas around 1460 (Cathedral, St. Elizabeth parish church) According to the author, it is a manifestation of reverence for the papal legate present in the city, Archbishop of Crete Hieronymus Landus. His stay was, among other things, a guarantee of safety for the city which refused to recognise the legitimacy of King George’s election. The next chapter is the presentation of the peculiar tower of the bishop’s castle in Otmuchów from around 1530 in the context of similar Bohemian and Moravian projects. The last text in this section is devoted to the situation of Bohemian and Moravian monasteries after the Hussite revolution and as such shows the context for the situation of Silesian religious congregations in the era of the Lutheran Reformation, so far ignored by researchers. This results in a misunderstanding of the processes taking place in Wrocław after 1520 which, as it turns out, are firmly rooted in the traditions of other Bohemian lands. The second part concerns the reality of scientific discourse and historiography. It starts with a short study attempting to place the work of Father Joseph Kögler, “Herodotus of the Kłodzko Land”, active at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The next chapter is a polemical reaction to the “charge” of the Warsaw researcher that is disrespectful to science and scientists in an attempt to redefine the character of the Silesian Gothic architecture, and more precisely, great and large churches before 1420. This is followed by an extensive study attempting to map the mechanisms governing the misrepresentation of the history of Silesia today but above all in the years just after the Second World War. It shows, most importantly, the process of conceiving and preparing the monumental, multi-volume “The History of Silesia” edited by Ewa and Karol Maleczyński. This work is not without reason considered to be Marxist. However, it is based on interesting discussions, especially with Czech researchers. In spite of the attempts, it has not rid itself of its nationalistic-polonocentric character and as such still shapes the mental and intellectual cognitive horizon of many authors writing about the past of Silesia. This results in a misunderstanding of the past and a by-product of this could be considered a fairy tale pretending to be scientific. This study is referenced by the next one, devoted to “paper wars of historians”. Especially after the Second World War, but also today, they not only reach for war or military rhetoric but – instead of discussing – fight with each other. In these clashes the biggest victim is the history as a science. The book ends with a study – a kind of review of the monumental work of Czech researchers “The Great History of the Bohemian Crown”, many volumes of which refer very superficially to the history of the entire Bohemian state as it was at the time. What is more, some volumes still adhere to the territorial boundaries of modern Czechia, giving a fundamentally false picture. This is particularly evident when one follows aspects related to Silesia on the pages of this study.